Chapter 3

His damn bed was moving. Why was it moving? Why was it crawling with him on it? Tucker. It must be Tucker's fault. Really funny, Tuck. Prepare to get burned when Danny threw that precious PDA of yours.

Danny opened his eyes but he couldn't make out anything. His head was spinning. He tried again. No, his vision was really swimming. Everything was a blur. His fingers twitched and pain shot through his arm to his shoulders. He jerked and his feet flexed. That was when he realized what was wrong.

There was no bed. He was upright. Or at least someone was forcing him to be upright.

Then he felt his feet were being dragged and his shoulders were cranking in pain. He waited for a few seconds for his sight to clear. The muscles in the back of his neck were straining but Danny didn't dare lift his head. He was still struggling to resurface to the world of consciousness but his sight caught the rough, uneven patches of a dark road. It was quiet. He could only hear the shuffling feet and the slight puffs of their breaths. There was someone carrying him. No, two someones.

In a flash, Danny remembered the party and Dash. He flinched and began to struggle but they didn't budge. He was pretty sure Dash was one of the guys holding him because he could still smell the same brand of liquor that scoffed at him right before he received the multiple punches award.

He planted his limp feet on the ground and attempted to yank his arms out. The men halted and turned to him. "He's awake." The guy on his left said, apparently he was that surprised.

"Then knock him out again." Ordered someone from Danny's right. Dash. Danny gritted his teeth, curled his fist and prepared to strike. Even before Danny's fist hit his target, someone clobbered the back of his head and everything went black. Again.

"What do we do?"

"Just toss him in!"

"The door's closed!"

"Then open it!"

Danny wanted to tell the hushed voices of familiar men to disappear. He was sleeping and he had a headache pulsating in his brain. They should shut up. He was sleeping. Someone shut them up, please?

He heard the slow creak of an opening door and the voices stopped. Good, now Danny could go back to dreamland. Wait. They were panting. Danny realized that before he even opened his eyes.

"I swear man, I didn't—"

"Just toss him in, Kwan and let's get the hell out of here."

"Okay, okay." Then Danny felt he was being lifted again. His eyes flew open as he sailed on air and through an open door. He landed with a huge thud inside a dark building. He coughed and rolled to his side. Damn Dash and whoever that Kwan was.

Danny tried to sit up but he was dizzy. An eerie wind blew and he felt the cold seeped through his head. He touched a hand on the back of his head. It stung. He felt something icy and clammy. Blood.

Danny sat up straight and looked around his surroundings for the first time. Where the heck was he?

"Good riddance, Danny-rella!" Dash yelled a few feet out the front door.

Danny's head whipped around in time to see Dash waving haughtily and a black-haired, Asian guy looking nervous beside him. Danny growled. Bullying, something that would never go out of style. He was still feeling disoriented thanks to the blow to his head but he stood on his feet. Only to crumple down again.

"Damn, dude! Look at him! I think I hit him too hard, he's unconscious again." Danny coughed and rolls of dust flew off the old floorboards.

"Of course he'd be unconscious, you hit him hard." Because you ordered him, Danny wanted to say but his lungs were too busy shoving oxygen back to his brain and body. He pushed himself up on his arms and got on his knees. Something was wrong with his ankle, it hurt. He didn't remember twisting it when he fell but then again, he could barely remember how he got here so Dash must have something to do with it. Along with the fact that he planned to throw Danny into an empty, dusty house in the middle of fucking nowhere.

"What? Can't get up? Or can't get it up? Both, maybe?" Dash guffawed loudly. "That's what you get for pushing your luck, Danny-rella. Too bad you don't have a fairy godmother here to help you now, huh?"

Danny ignored the rest of Dash's taunting, his hand grasping for anything he could hold onto. Everything was still blurry and his head was still heavy. He could feel his blood dripping on the floor. He was starting to feel cold.

"Do you even know where you are? Hahaha! You don't, do you?" Dash continued but Danny's mouth was temporarily disconnected from his brain. His smart ass comebacks would have to wait, right now, the sounds of his dripping blood should stop before he lost consciousness again. He managed to grab hold of a chair leg and leaned on the couch-shaped furniture behind him. He was inside a house, that he was sure of. An enormous, mostly empty, freezing house. He wondered if Dash owned this place. Was it some sort of headquarters where he sent his bullied victims to scar them for life?

"… about a hundred." Danny heard Dash's companion muttered. Kwan appeared to be the nicer type. He was still watching Danny with worry evident on his face while Dash was rambling on and on about this place.

"This is her house. You're in there. And you're absolutely dead…" At the mention of the last word, Danny finally paid attention to Dash.

"What did you say?" Danny pushed down on his elbows to lift himself up. He was feeling better but that annoying drip-drop of blood was still going on and echoing around the house.

Dash inhaled and looked at Danny solemnly. "You're a dead man, Fenton."

Danny would like to educate Dash more about his 'dead' status but his mind was slowly figuring out the pieces.

"FUCK! FUCK! Son of a bitch!" Kwan was staring at something inside the house. His voice was sky-rocketing a dozen octaves off the pitch chart.

Danny's mind finally clicked. No, it couldn't be.

"What has gotten into you?!" Dash bellowed at Kwan but Danny knew what was happening even before Kwan got it out of his mouth.

"THE STAIRS! THE FUCKING STAIRS! LOOK AT THE FUCKING STAIRS! GOD, SHE'S— SHE'S HERE! SHE'S REAL!"

Danny's eyes slowly peered up the stairs. He didn't see anything at first but he already had a bad feeling about this. Nonetheless, he still found himself frozen and in awe at what he saw, because at the top of the old, rickety stairs a hazy form of a woman appeared. The image started as blurry like she was gathering up her energy to be corporeal but a second later, she was a full, moving … thing.

Danny's mind swiftly switched back to alert mode. He patted his pants pocket, his waist. Nothing. Great, his dagger and blaster were back inside the pick up that was parked near the edge of the forest where the party was. Way to go for a ghost hunter.

The guys were still continuing with their commotion and Danny's eyes gazed back at the second floor landing of the old house. His jaw hit the floor.

Sam The Slaughteress was floating at the top of the stairs, her long, dark hair writhing behind her like she was the horror version of Ariel, only out of the water. He was pretty certain he had good eyesight but with probably a cave in his skull from the earlier beating, Danny was having trouble grasping and acting on this situation. He could make out a few details of a flowy skirt but he couldn't see her death wounds.

Other ghosts wore their last, fatal blow like a gold medal but Sam, she was different. Her eyes were pools of oily black. Her skin was thin, white and almost luminiscent, Danny could see a few violet veins standing out in contrast of her bright skin. And holy shit, she was coming down the stairs!

"FUUUUCCKKK!" Danny heard one of the guys screamed, he wasn't sure which one because they both sounded like a girl who had seen a flying cockroach but he didn't give a damn. He was too busy gawking at Sam, who was weightlessly floating down without her bare, white feet touching the steps. Her hands were at her sides like a marionette being played by a puppeteer. Her head was a bit bent to the side and her oily black eyes staring at nothing.

Danny wished she didn't see him but he somehow knew that she was seeing everything.

She finally stopped at the foot of the stairs. The floorboard creaked. The blood dropped again.

Sam was horrible. A dead woman in what used to be a white skirt. The dress was a flimsy, sleeveless thing, drenched in dark blood. Out of all the things he could think about, Danny realized one thing; the dripping blood wasn't coming from his head, it was from her bleeding dress.

Something was rattling Danny's body and it took him a moment to realize it was his goddamn knees shaking. His back hit the wall. There was nowhere to run. And no, he also didn't know he was trying to get away from her.

"Sam." Danny breathed and for a second, he was pretty sure he caught her off guard. He was sure they saw each other, eye to eye.

He was also sure about one thing. Sam was the goddamn goddess of death.

One moment she was a few feet away from him, the next she was hovering before him. Danny couldn't speak anymore. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. He was supposed to be gathering more information about her. He was supposed to be plotting ways to kill her. Fuck this shit, he was supposed to be strong and at least running away from her!

She waved a chalk-white hand. A strong breeze swooped in and Dash landed right beside Danny.

"No! No! Man, p-please! G-god, j-just a joke!" Dash tried to tuck himself into a ball but a force lifted him off the ground, his arms and limbs stretched out. He flailed but he was held in place. He began screaming or crying. Danny felt that he was shouting too. Both of them begging her to stop. He could also hear Kwan in the background but he didn't dare step foot inside the house.

Sam wasn't listening.

She tilted her head as if thinking where to strike best. Then her arms shot forward, purple, blackish veins popped out and wrapped around her papery skin and before any of them could blink, her pale arms thrust through Dash's torso and he shrieked in agony. He struggled but she had an immense power over him. She treaded her hand down inside his body like she was cutting through butter and finally yanked her fist out. Blood erupted from his mouth as Dash let out one last scream and he dropped to the ground, two halves of him twitching. His eyes rolled lifelessly around its sockets.

Danny stopped breathing and turned his head. He didn't want to see Dash's twitching fingers or his intestines jerking around.

A squishy sound made him look back at her. She had turned her attention on him. One of her fists was curled. Danny gulped. God, he was next!

He tried to clear his mind as he breathed deeply. This was better. He knew that this was bound to happen anyway. Dying in the hands of the most powerful ghost he ever faced was better than dying on a forest because some football hulk-idiot hit him on the head.

Sam offered her fist to him and Danny blinked. She opened her palm and inside was a little black mass of dying flesh and broken veins squirting with dark blood. Danny felt the rush of vomit coming from his throat but he refused to give into it. Dash's still pulsing heart stayed in the air for another second before she crushed it between her long, white fingers. Droplets of blood splashed on Danny but he didn't care.

He just wanted to get out of here. He was in no shape to fight and in no mood for live, gross shows.

Before he even made sense of what he was doing, Danny found himself trying to crawl out of the house. The door banged shut. He stiffened. So she wasn't planning to let him out. Fantastic.

Without any warning, he was lifted off the ground. His arms and feet stretched out the same way Dash looked right before he was cut in half and got dismembered. Whether it was out of desperation or insanity, Danny snickered. Sam paused.

"What, no originality? Not even a hint of art in what you do? You just hang people in the air and tear them into pieces like what you did with Dash? Come on, I expected more from you." The taunt would have carried more conviction if his knees weren't trembling and if he was breathing calmly instead of panting and sweating.

Sam's brows knitted but she didn't say anything and out of all the emotions that Danny was feeling, annoyance won the title of crossing his face. He was scared but he at least wanted this to be memorable, not just a Zeus-energized killer without any trace of humor in what she did. Okay, to be honest he wanted his death in her hands to be special.

Like Romeo-and-Juliet-tragic-ending special. Or something equally ... touching.

Danny had to admit he was a special kind of idiot for wanting this. What did he expect anyway? That he would meet a woman, fall in love and have a family with her and then they would be the coolest, ghost hunting family the world would have ever known? He wouldn't do that to his own wife and children (if he ever had any), that was basically dooming them.

No, there was no future family for Danny Fenton. No future wife too. Since he was going to die here and now.

He let out a long sigh. "You do realize they call you a slaughteress for a reason, right? You are not just a ghost legend because your routine is to kill people with a wave of your hand. Have some variety in your work."

Oh, God. He wanted to smack himself in the head. What the hell was he doing? He was giving her more ideas to make this very long and painful for him.

Sam's face didn't register any emotion. She didn't even give him a slightest inkling if she understood him. She was just... dead. She was worse than a zombie. At least a zombie would be giving him a look that said, 'You so delicious. You food.' With Sam, Danny didn't know if speech and cognition were part of her resume.

Because if she was nothing but a killing machine, then he would be very disappointed and he didn't know why he would be.

Sam raised a vein-covered hand to his face. The smell of death wafted to his nose. She reached and grasped his cheek. Her touch was cold and electrifying. When their skin met, bright white light exploded in the room and they were both thrown to opposite sides.

Danny was slumped against the wall and he looked down to check if his heart was still intact but his eyes bulged when he saw his black jumpsuit. He caught sight of his reflection from the window and his snow white hair beamed at him. Shit. First encounter with his target and he accidentally revealed his secret. He was a complete laughing stock.

He struggled to stand and met Sam's eye. He smirked at her to hide his obvious discomfort. "Surprise! Your meat is already half dead, you just need to do the other half of the killing."

"You're a ghost." Her voice was still feminine with an undertone of eeriness and an echo but it carried a hint of wonder.

"It speaks." He commented snidely, just to spite her. Great news then, she'd be able to understand his smartass lines now. Well, if he'd still have any left after she was done whipping his ass.

Danny rolled his shoulders. It ached, hell, everything in his body was screaming in pain but he wasn't about to show her that. He inhaled, he still got a bit of power left but it wouldn't be enough for a fight. Still it would work for some showing off. "Yup." He replied proudly and flew in front of Sam.

She seemed amazed for a second but she quickly distanced herself from him. Another fat drop of blood plopped down the floor.

Danny's brows creased. "For 'The Slaughteress', you've grown quite shy in my presence." Then he internally cringed. Christ, was he flirting?

"But you were human a while ago…" Her voice was small, almost child-like, as if she hadn't spoken for years. She drew her fingers to her black lips like this wasn't possible.

Maybe this was the case. The reason why this encounter was so bizarre, because she never talked to anyone who had the guts to enter her house, because all she did with people who stepped into this house was to end their lives. Maybe this was just as weird for her as it was for him. Maybe in all the grotesque shit that had happened tonight, this was a positive note. This was interaction.

Well, everybody had to start somewhere, right?

Then Sam did something that absolutely drove the screw to Danny's heart. She looked at him with disgust written all over her face.

Danny fisted his hands and bit his lower lip. She unknowingly hit a nerve. No matter how many times ghosts had given him the same reaction, it still stung. It hurt more that even the nastiest killer of them all had thought he was more terrible than her. He was an abomination. Monstrous. Worse than the slaughteress.

Then he remembered his father. How he fought and killed ghosts. How he taught Danny how to fight and take out ghosts on his own. How he died in the hands of a ghost who made Danny what he was now. Danny felt sick.

Flashes of that excruciating night filled his eyes. Danny curled in on himself as he shut his eyes. He gritted his teeth and clutched himself. Tears began pooling in his eyes and moans escaped his lips.

He could barely hear Sam above his own voice. He couldn't breathe. He was drowning. He was having a goddamn panic attack in front of the ghost he was going to kill and he couldn't do anything about it.

"HEY!" Was all that he heard from her before he got slammed on the wall and everything went black.

A/N: Special thanks goes to Muffin, Lightning Streak, and Guest for reviewing last chapter! Your reviews definitely made my day!

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